Kate Johnson There’s always so much time to think on the road. Jane and I are always walking. Walking from Hart’s Mills to get away from the raiders, walking to the Church of the Fonz as refugees. Walking away from the church with two new sets of feet both belonging to former MPD officers, probably ruthless killers. I try to keep my thoughts on more pleasant things but out here it’s difficult. Out here my mind can wander in the boredom of long walks. One foot in front of the other Kate. Keep aware Kate, they could sneak up on you.The screams start echoing in my skull then I begin counting as I tap two fingers on the back of my left hand. nine, ten, deep breath Kate.I look ahead as the pounding in my ears grows loud and there sits a building ahead of us. My mind clears finally, twenty-five, twenty-six, I can do this... exhale.
The pale gray of the brick building stands before us surrounded by a drab gray landscape as if it’s trying to hide from us in it's dull camouflage. As our group of wanderers stand before it I glance over at an immense pile of rubble. It's a large pile of junk piled on more useless junk. Art starts clambering to the top, he’s tactical like that always looking for a good viewpoint, when a loud crack rings out from the other side of the heap. Gunfire, two, three, four... Art flattens himself against the top of the hill and aims his gun towards the summit of the garbage heap. I can still feel the fear of the initial shot like a rock in my chest. Deep breath Kate. I try to sneak around the hill to get a better look at our attacker while Art and Dahvin's gunfire reverberates off of the nearby building. I peek around the rubble only to see one old man with a garbage bag tied to his back and a handgun shaking in his cowardly hand then BLAM! Art sinks a good shot into the old man’s chest.
Jane swoops in to relieve the man of his pistol while he falls to a knee. The fool starts bumbling about his precious garbage and how it’s all his when he starts coughing up blood. As the four of us gather around our attacker who is brain rattled on top of being lung shot an unspoken understanding passes amongst the four of us that there’s nothing we can do to fix either of his problems except put him out of his pain. Dahvin finishes off the sad creature with a quick swing of his axegun. It’s done. At least he doesn't have to suffer anymore, physically or mentally. I try to act like it doesn't bother me as we start searching him for things we need for our own survival. His stench makes the bile rise at the back of my throat but I push it down, two, three, four... and the blood, the metallic smell of blood... seven, eight, nine, deep breath Kate... I relieve him of his water skin while the others take things they can use. I check the water skin, half full with water, hoping his type of crazy isn’t contagious. We move on and leave the corpse for the dogs the same way I left my mother behind. I couldn't stay and bury her why should I bury this creature? It's his own fault he died and it's not my job to clean up his mistake. We move through the gray building which is nothing but filthy and useless while Art covers our butts from a hill outside; He’s tactical like that. Jane kicks open a door inside like the action heroes my grandfather used to tell me about. Bam! like it’s nothing. This room is full of fire starter sheets, cabinets of the stuff. We find few useful things like a jug of water some folded wire or ‘paperclips’ as everybody quickly corrected me. I never really cared for memorizing the old names of things in school. I also find a ring with five lock-cheaters, 'keys' as I am corrected again. Overachievers, all of them. Back outside Art is still covering us from his lookout and we climb up to let him know what we’ve found when we hear whimpering noises. My first thought is dinner. Something to eat other then this gorp. Not that I wasn’t excited the first fifty times I got to eat the crap but it tastes like dirt now. It’s getting late anyway, we could make camp and spitfire roast the thing. It’d be so good but I pull myself from my salivating. We have to find it first. I start chanting softly “din-ner, din-ner, din-ner.” as we followed the sounds to a large overhead garage door. I use one of the cheaters on the lock underneath a keypad and the door groans to life and slides up and open squealing in protest. “This is going to be so much better then our old shoe leather jerky, a real feast for us!” Doesn’t seem like the others share my enthusiasm for a good meal. They’d be happy with eating the dirt from the ground with scrap metal flakes. Whatever creature it was was hiding in a pile of oily rags that now shook with fear, delicious delicious fear. I was practically drooling. It has to be a dog, lots of delicious meat on those compared to other things out here. I hope it's nice and fat. Jane uses her big stick to lift the pile of rags off of our dinner and I ready to bash it over it’s head with my police baton. And there it was. The most adorable puppy looked up at me from the rags and when I saw its big brown eyes all thoughts of dinner were knocked out of me like a kick to the stomach. It was nothing like the mangy cur I envisioned, hell, I didn't know dogs could be adorable at all. Jane calmed the poor little thing down and picked him up. The lovable little guy had one of his ears bitten off and was scared. His little wet nose was soooo cute! All I could manage to vocalize was, “Awww what a cute widdle puppy.” and my speech was all messed up like talking to a baby but I loved the dirty little thing already and I wanted it to feel safe. Poor thing is all alone out here in the cold wastes with no mother to keep it safe and warm. I could really understand the puppy's lonely fear. Night started to drape over the Eastern sky so we knew it was time to make camp with our new friend inside the garage. Art flicked on the lights for a moment and we found bathrooms that had toilets. With the door locked behind us this is the safest place Jane and I have slept in for a long time but that still doesn't make sleep come any faster out here. Not with a new ghost following you. (sketched at the bottom of the entry)
There’s always so much time to think on the road. Jane and I are always walking. Walking from Hart’s Mills to get away from the raiders, walking to the Church of the Fonz as refugees. Walking away from the church with two new sets of feet both belonging to former MPD officers, probably ruthless killers. I try to keep my thoughts on more pleasant things but out here it’s difficult. Out here my mind can wander in the boredom of long walks. One foot in front of the other Kate. Keep aware Kate, they could sneak up on you. The screams start echoing in my skull then I begin counting as I tap two fingers on the back of my left hand. nine, ten, deep breath Kate. I look ahead as the pounding in my ears grows loud and there sits a building ahead of us. My mind clears finally, twenty-five, twenty-six, I can do this... exhale.
The pale gray of the brick building stands before us surrounded by a drab gray landscape as if it’s trying to hide from us in it's dull camouflage. As our group of wanderers stand before it I glance over at an immense pile of rubble. It's a large pile of junk piled on more useless junk. Art starts clambering to the top, he’s tactical like that always looking for a good viewpoint, when a loud crack rings out from the other side of the heap. Gunfire, two, three, four... Art flattens himself against the top of the hill and aims his gun towards the summit of the garbage heap. I can still feel the fear of the initial shot like a rock in my chest. Deep breath Kate. I try to sneak around the hill to get a better look at our attacker while Art and Dahvin's gunfire reverberates off of the nearby building. I peek around the rubble only to see one old man with a garbage bag tied to his back and a handgun shaking in his cowardly hand then BLAM! Art sinks a good shot into the old man’s chest.
Jane swoops in to relieve the man of his pistol while he falls to a knee. The fool starts bumbling about his precious garbage and how it’s all his when he starts coughing up blood. As the four of us gather around our attacker who is brain rattled on top of being lung shot an unspoken understanding passes amongst the four of us that there’s nothing we can do to fix either of his problems except put him out of his pain. Dahvin finishes off the sad creature with a quick swing of his axegun. It’s done. At least he doesn't have to suffer anymore, physically or mentally. I try to act like it doesn't bother me as we start searching him for things we need for our own survival. His stench makes the bile rise at the back of my throat but I push it down, two, three, four... and the blood, the metallic smell of blood... seven, eight, nine, deep breath Kate... I relieve him of his water skin while the others take things they can use. I check the water skin, half full with water, hoping his type of crazy isn’t contagious.
We move on and leave the corpse for the dogs the same way I left my mother behind. I couldn't stay and bury her why should I bury this creature? It's his own fault he died and it's not my job to clean up his mistake. We move through the gray building which is nothing but filthy and useless while Art covers our butts from a hill outside; He’s tactical like that. Jane kicks open a door inside like the action heroes my grandfather used to tell me about. Bam! like it’s nothing. This room is full of fire starter sheets, cabinets of the stuff. We find few useful things like a jug of water some folded wire or ‘paperclips’ as everybody quickly corrected me. I never really cared for memorizing the old names of things in school. I also find a ring with five lock-cheaters, 'keys' as I am corrected again. Overachievers, all of them.
Back outside Art is still covering us from his lookout and we climb up to let him know what we’ve found when we hear whimpering noises. My first thought is dinner. Something to eat other then this gorp. Not that I wasn’t excited the first fifty times I got to eat the crap but it tastes like dirt now. It’s getting late anyway, we could make camp and spitfire roast the thing. It’d be so good but I pull myself from my salivating. We have to find it first. I start chanting softly “din-ner, din-ner, din-ner.” as we followed the sounds to a large overhead garage door. I use one of the cheaters on the lock underneath a keypad and the door groans to life and slides up and open squealing in protest. “This is going to be so much better then our old shoe leather jerky, a real feast for us!” Doesn’t seem like the others share my enthusiasm for a good meal. They’d be happy with eating the dirt from the ground with scrap metal flakes. Whatever creature it was was hiding in a pile of oily rags that now shook with fear, delicious delicious fear. I was practically drooling. It has to be a dog, lots of delicious meat on those compared to other things out here. I hope it's nice and fat. Jane uses her big stick to lift the pile of rags off of our dinner and I ready to bash it over it’s head with my police baton.
And there it was. The most adorable puppy looked up at me from the rags and when I saw its big brown eyes all thoughts of dinner were knocked out of me like a kick to the stomach. It was nothing like the mangy cur I envisioned, hell, I didn't know dogs could be adorable at all. Jane calmed the poor little thing down and picked him up. The lovable little guy had one of his ears bitten off and was scared. His little wet nose was soooo cute! All I could manage to vocalize was, “Awww what a cute widdle puppy.” and my speech was all messed up like talking to a baby but I loved the dirty little thing already and I wanted it to feel safe. Poor thing is all alone out here in the cold wastes with no mother to keep it safe and warm. I could really understand the puppy's lonely fear. Night started to drape over the Eastern sky so we knew it was time to make camp with our new friend inside the garage. Art flicked on the lights for a moment and we found bathrooms that had toilets. With the door locked behind us this is the safest place Jane and I have slept in for a long time but that still doesn't make sleep come any faster out here. Not with a new ghost following you.
(sketched at the bottom of the entry)